Do You Like Her
by prophet-of-troy
Summary: Conversation in which Harry is asking for Ginny's hand, and Mr. Weasley asks him a very confusing question.


Harry had never felt more nervous in his life, standing on the stoop of the place that had been home to him for so long. And knocking. He was sure anyone else would laugh and think it silly, knocking at the Burrow, but it was a knocking occasion. So he stood there at the front door and knocked, his hands shaking as he did so.

Mrs. Weasley answered with her polite face, pulled on for whatever stranger was bothering to _knock_ as no one else ever did. When she saw Harry, she looked confused for a moment. Her feathery brows, the ones her daughter inherited, knitted together and she frowned.

"Harry, dear, what's wrong? Where's Ginny?"

"Oh, she's gone to lunch with Luna and Hermione. I was wondering, that is to say, I mean-" Harry's mouth was dry and his heart rate was elevated in a terrified way he hadn't experienced since the war. "I wondered, perhaps, if I might speak to Mr. Weasley."

At that, her face softened into a smile of understanding- her eyes shifting down to where he was trying to keep from fidgeting with the end of his muggle coat. He hadn't called the man Mr. Weasley since he was seventeen, and now five years later the words felt foreign coming from his lips.

"Yes, of course, dear. He's in the kitchen."

Harry nodded and passed her to find him, but she didn't follow the way he'd half expected her to. This was home. Even after he and Ginny moved into Grimmauld Place and remodeled, the Burrow was home. More than Privet Drive had ever been, and perhaps even more than Hogwarts was. On the rare occasion he visited the school, either to speak to Dumbledore and Snape's portraits or to see Ginny before she graduated, it was hard not to also see the collapsed walls that had been rebuilt or the bodies laid out in the Great Hall.

Mr. Weasley was indeed in the kitchen, at the table disassembling a muggle computer modem. He looked up when Harry entered, smiling when he saw him before looking back to what he was doing. "Harry, come in, sit down. Perhaps you can help."

Harry didn't know anything about computers, not really, but he sat down anyway with hands that were shaking even more than they'd been previously. He wasn't quite sure what to do with them.

"Mr. Weasley," he started. "I've come to talk to you."

The older man, who now had gray streaking the temples of his red, looked up at him again. He smiled, setting down the screwdriver. He gestured with a hand and spoke with a kind voice. "What's on your mind, son?"

Harry cleared his throat, his throat that felt like the driest of deserts. "Sir, I love your daughter. I never thought I would ever find someone like her, who takes every part of me as I am and is still there after. There's nothing I wouldn't ever do for her. I've come to ask for your blessing."

Mr. Weasley nodded to himself and leaned back, his arms loosely crossed. Harry could hear Mrs. Weasley's clock ticking, could hear her just around the corner listening to their conversation. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and feel it in his chest. He could feel the heaviness of the ring in his pocket that he'd had for the past three months. It was a curse, having the ring. Now that he had it in his pocket, he kept wanting to ask her; when she smiled, when she laughed, that night before when she wiped crumbs from the corner of his mouth with her thumb. But she was close with her father, and he had to do this right. She deserved that.

"Do you like her?"

Harry frowned. "Sir, I love her."

Mr. Weasley chuckled. "Well, son, I know you love her, you want to marry her. But do you _like_ her?"

"Mr. Weasley, I'm not sure I understand."

He nodded, standing up and leisurely walking to the wall where a few family pictures hung. "I know. I didn't either."

He stopped at a picture that Harry had looked at many times. A picture of Ginny sitting on Mr. Weasley's lap, his pointed hat on her head that was so big it slipped over her eyes and she had to lift it. Harry couldn't see the current Mr. Weasley's face as his back was turned.

"You can love someone, Harry, without liking who they are as a person," Mr. Weasley said, turning around to look at Harry. "Just as you can like someone without loving them. You can be head over heels in love with someone, and not like them at all sometimes."

Harry frowned. "Yes, sir."

"Suppose you fight," Mr. Weasley said. "My daughter's a spitfire, just like her mother is. And I can promise you that sometimes you will fight and during which you think at that moment- that you don't like her very much. Marriage comes strengthens in those moments, when you have to remind yourself that even if you don't like them at that moment, you love them."

Harry thought he understood.

"Do you like her?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said slowly, "I like her."

Mr. Weasley nodded.

"It's not going to be easy," he warned. "Women expect things they never ask for, and if they don't get what they want they'll ask why. Sometimes they don't ask why and just punish you for not doing something you didn't know you were supposed to do in the first place."

Harry blinked a few times, feeling more nervous than before. "Like what, sir?"

Mr. Weasley sighed, thinking. "Well, Harry, that's a very difficult question to answer. Because you're never quite sure. You see, it's very relative."

"Relative to what, sir?"

"How they're feeling at the moment."

"And how's that, sir?"

"You never know."

Harry moistened his lips, "I don't believe I quite understand what you're trying to tell me, sir."

Mr. Weasley nodded. "I know, I know. I never understood it myself. Sometimes women will cry and not tell you why, because they don't know why. Women are like that. Do you understand?"

Harry almost nodded, but said, "No."

"When she does that, it will be easy to get mad, Harry. But don't get angry. Just, walk up to her and hug her. That's all that she really needs."

A few moments passed without either of them saying anything, Harry feeling incredibly confused. Then Mr. Weasley asked, "Do you have the ring yet?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said, "It was my mother's."

He moved to pull it out of his pocket, not having shown anyone yet except for Hermione. But Mr. Weasley stopped him. "No, no. I'll see it when it's on her hand."

Harry smiled hopefully. "You mean-"

"I do," Mr. Weasley nodded.

And Harry went home.

A/N: So, this is actually based, and quoted, from a conversation in the 1965 Civil War movie, Shenandoah. If you haven't seen the movie, join the club because I haven't either. But I watched the part I used for this with my husband, as it's one of his favorite scenes. Let me know what you think. I'm not a fan of Harry/Ginny, but I thought this fit so very well. Let me know in the towel section if you agree.

Mia.


End file.
